


The Precipice of Choice

by nans56



Series: Precipice of Choice [1]
Category: The West Wing
Genre: Eventual Romance, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-18
Updated: 2019-03-03
Packaged: 2019-10-31 02:30:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 8,188
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17840687
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nans56/pseuds/nans56
Summary: You're always on the edge, balanced on the precipice of choice.





	1. The Precipice of Choice

**Author's Note:**

> I have been a fan of TWW since the beginning. Only recently have I been watching it over and over on Netflix. I have written for years, but have just started writing fan fiction. This is my first post ever here.  
> I find the relationship of Leo and Margaret to be compelling. I have wondered how two people could together for so long, through so much and NOT develop a love for each other.

The Precipice of Choice - 1

Leo McGarry

Disclaimer: Not mine. Just borrowing for a bit.

I am not the guy who remembers to tell you I love you. I won’t remember to send flowers, or candy on Valentine’s Day. Obviously, I do not remember anniversaries. I am not warm and fuzzy or cute and cuddly. I am more likely to fall asleep on the couch under a pile of work than curled against you watching a movie. I’ll forget to eat so I won’t remember to take you out to dinner. I am about as imperfect a human being as you’ll find.

I have made more mistakes in my life than good choices, and whether it is a mistake or a good choice, I seem to do it up big. Jenny was one of my good choices and the result was Mallory who I love so much I get giddy thinking of her. And I am a guy who doesn’t do giddy, but if she knew how much I loved her even she would be shocked speechless. She is the good thing, no, the great thing, that came from the marriage that I destroyed. Another good choice was getting my best friend to run for President. He is that one great mind in a lifetime. I love him too. For being my friend, for saving me when I didn’t care to save myself. That one thing, giving him to the American people, should redeem me.

But it doesn’t, as good as it is, as he is, it doesn’t absolve me. I am an alcoholic. I am a drug addict. Always will be. You’re never ‘cured’. You’re always on the edge, balanced on the precipice of choice. The choice to fall or the choice to keep clean one more day. Some days I only stay clean because I am too tired to contemplate the effort of that drink.

I’ve killed. As a pilot. As a patriot. And still, because of that, I don’t sleep at night. I know I can never be absolved of that guilt. Be it for whatever reason, people have died because of a choice I made. When I close my eyes, I see them, and they damn me. So, I stay awake as long as I can, working into the night, trying to do enough good to absolve the guilt. But it is never enough.

I wish I had a reason to go home. Someone to go home to. Someone to love. Like I said, I am not your cute and cuddly guy, but sometimes, the ache for someone to talk to in the long night, to touch, to feel, to chase away the darkness, the loneliness, is almost overwhelming. My gut aches and my chest constricts and then, only then, in the night, I can cry a little. Just a little. It sometimes helps. But mostly it doesn’t.

So, I sit here at my desk. The dim yellow glow from the lamp lights my desk and little more. The rest of the office is in darkness. Dim shadows from where the outlines of the furniture hulk silently. Kind of reminds me of myself. Surrounded by nothing, lit only from within.

Then my office door opens. She tells me to go home. I tell her to go home. She softly shakes her head. Her mantra; I sleep when you sleep. She gently closes the door, shutting out the light from her office, from her smile, from the red glow of her hair, from the strength of her heart. She has such a good heart. I don’t know why she stays, but she does. I think I would shrivel up and perish if she ever left. I don’t know if I would have the strength, the will, the desire to keep going on if she left. I never want to find out. I pray to God I never have to find out.


	2. Kismet of Coincidence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She is the object of my quandary. My this or that. My right or wrong. She doesn’t know it; or does she? She knows me. She reads me. She understands even what I do not. She has been a part of me for years, yet not a part. A world apart. But my life would be so different if she had never walked into it. Was it fate? Was it that kismet of coincidence that seems to guide the foolish and the ignorant?

All life is a choice. You make a choice; either this or that. With each choice, your life, your fate is directed toward a future. This takes you in one direction and that takes you in another. I have always hated the black and white of choice. The yin and yang, the right or wrong, the…

My choices have often been wrong. Destructive. Life altering. How can I make a choice now? I am sure I will screw it up. I usually do when it comes to my personal life. This is an important choice and I am afraid to make it. How can I make a choice of this magnitude and ensure I don’t screw it up again?

The precipice of choice is a balancing act of this and that, left and right. I know the choice I want to make. I know the question I want to ask. I am afraid of the answer. I am not a coward, far from it. But the answer to this question could change everything.

She is the object of my quandary. My this or that. My right or wrong. She doesn’t know it; or does she? She knows me. She reads me. She understands me even when I do not. She has been a part of me for years; yet not a part. A world apart. But my life would be so different if she had never walked into it. Was it fate? Was it that kismet of coincidence that seems to guide the foolish and the ignorant? I don’t want to know what my fate might have been. She is a part of me now, and I want her to be a part of my future. I want more.

I do not know when the thought crept upon me. When I began to wonder if she could be more, if she would want to be more, than just the keeper of my office. Could she be the keeper of my heart? Do I dare believe it could be? There are so many reasons why it is a monumentally bad idea. I sit back and wonder how I can even contemplate asking the question. How can I even have the thought?

How can I _not_ have the thought? It has invaded my consciousness with alarming frequency lately. In meetings, in staff, in the middle of the day and in the middle of the night. It has made my breath hitch and made me sit up in the middle of the night. ‘Are you okay’ I have been asked when the thought causes me to break my stride? When I seem distracted. ‘No. I am fine,’ is my usual response.

But I am not. Fine, that is. Of course I say I am fine, but fine is relative. Relative to what? Relative to what _not_ fine is. Everyone perceives me to be a tower of strength. The man behind the man. The guardian of the gate. The leader of the band. The glue that holds this whole damn place together. What they don’t know is she is the glue holding me together. Without her the whole damn thing could collapse like a house of cards.

It’s hard for a man to admit to weakness, yet I have admitted to the worst of my weaknesses on the podium before the press, before the world. This weakness, I am sure I could never admit to. The weakness?

I am lonely. What a pitiful thing to admit to. It sounds so…whiney. Poor me. I am lonely. But unless you have experienced loneliness…that awake at 3:00 am while the world sleeps, staring out a window into the black night and you can’t stop the ache in your chest or the bitter acid taste that crawls up your throat, loneliness…well, you have no idea. You wake alone to the paper and hastily brewed coffee gulped while CNN fills you in. No warm voice and a smile, just endless pundits droning on half deaf ears. When you finally, are so tired you can barely stand, you brave the loneliness of your sterile hotel room at the end of the day, which is, most often, the next day. Flick on the TV so the pundit’s drones can fill the empty, cold place you inhabit. More often than not, falling asleep on the couch because you lack the strength to undress and climb into your empty bed.

I have found I abhor the empty nights. Too many ghosts come to visit in the long night. Too many thoughts creep into my consciousness. Not that I want her to chase away my demons; I want her to help me to cope with them. Her presence could warm the room, her smile could rival the sun, warming my heart. She knows me better than anyone. Even more than my best friend; she has seen it all. She has held my head while I puked up my guts, has put me to bed when I couldn’t stand, she was there after rehab and never doubted me. She runs my life with precision and strength. She feeds me, makes me sleep when I don’t have the sense to stop and worries that the sun won’t rise.

When did she invade my heart? When did she touch me in a different way, suddenly, after all these years? Why now? Why ever? Standing on the precipitous of choice, once again, can I make the right one?


	3. Her Choices

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He knew what I had done. He tried to speak, but his voice was so rough he gave up. I told him I had to go. I had been there all night. “You’ll be okay?” He nodded. “I thought you were going to die. Go home,” I said.

Precipice of Choice

Chapter 3

I am worried. Something is wrong. Not terribly wrong. Just oddly wrong. The atmosphere in the office is tentative. Fraught with tension. I don’t know what is going on, but it just feels wrong.

I have caught him staring at me now twice, with this strange longing look on his face. He never does that. He is usually so busy during the day that his head rarely rises from the heap of files and reports on his desk as he bellows my name. I am used to it and now I miss it. I miss his bellow because it means something is wrong. I don’t think he is ill. I would check his temperature by feeling his forehead but he would pull away and grumble about my being his mother.

So I ignore the looks but keep my eye on him, because, darn it, something is wrong. By noon the schedule is in danger of not only spiraling out of control, I fear it will soon be blown out of the water. He has been to the sit room twice in the last three hours. The lunch I brought back from the mess has not been touched, but that is not unusual.

Getting the man to eat is impossible. As much as he loves to talk food and watch his semi-pornographic cooking show, getting him to eat is a constant struggle. Taking care of himself never occurs to him. He thinks he can run on empty day after day, with no sleep and expects his body will just keep going. And it does for a while, through sheer will and effort. But when it all catches up with him, he falls hard and I am there to pick him and the pieces up.

There he is; watching me again as I bring him his messages. That same brooding look on his face, like he wants to ask me a question. Wants to tell me something, but is unsure what to say. I know what I would say to him, if I were brave enough. I would tell him that I care. I care about him in a way that would terrify him. Maybe it would astound him, befuddle him, worry him. I doubt that it would please him.

When I walked into his office twelve years ago I saw a handsome man with sandy red-gold hair, gorgeous grey-hazel eyes and a smile that could stop traffic. Then he spoke and that deep rumble of a voice made me stop in my tracks. I almost whirled around and left, but I needed this job too much. So I made myself sit and answer his questions and he off-handedly told me I had the job. I opened my mouth and when nothing came out he quirked an eyebrow at me and I think I fell in love with that face right then and there.

I have loved him for over twelve years. Loved him even more when I found out about the booze and later the pills. He was a good man, a kind man when he was sober and he loved his wife and daughter and had a sense of right, of duty. How could you not love him? So I stayed. Longer than I ever intended, because he needed someone who believed in him. I did. I believed he had a purpose and I thought, maybe, I can help him. Keep him on track.

That is what I have done since that first day. Keep him on track. I reached a point, right before he finally got into rehab, where I thought I couldn’t do it anymore. He was self-destructing before my eyes. I didn’t think I could cover for him anymore. It was getting so out of control, he was so out of control, I was sure he would blow, right in public, and his career, his life, would be over. He couldn’t survive without it.

Thank god, when he came back from rehab, and I saw his clear eyes and his smile I knew he was going to be okay. Not fine, but okay. He says he is fine, but I know he isn’t. It’s hard. It’s really hard. I can see the struggle. I can tell from his walk, the set of his shoulders, the way he smiles, or so often, grimaces, by the tone of his voice, what is going on with him. After all these years he is like a book to me. It’s all there, written down, and I can tell at a glance what the day may be like. There is a certain way he licks his lips. I am sure no one else can see it, or knows. But I can tell, from that, that he wants a drink. He is remembering the taste. He is wanting the taste.

That is when I tell a joke. I find the worst jokes I can. Awful jokes. Jokes sure to make him stare at me like I have finally gone bonkers, and he smiles, shakes his head, or bellows to get out. But I can see the desire for the drink, the lick of the lips, is forgotten. At least for a little while.

It is late afternoon. He has forgotten the food I brought for lunch and I am sure he will miss dinner, so I wander in to his office. Ask him if I can bring him something to eat. He doesn’t look up. He shakes his head. “Nah. I’m fine.” If I had a nickel for every ‘I’m fine…” I go to the mess anyway. I will get him to eat. I never get him fried food, or junk food. But I am worried. He is still giving me those strange, longing looks. He starts to open his mouth, then looks over my shoulder the way he does, when he is thinking, or censoring what he is going to say. Then he looks back into my eyes and I do not know what I see there.

When I walk back into the office, I put the plate on his desk. A double cheeseburger with Swiss cheese. A pile of fries glistening under a healthy squirt of ketchup. A huge pickle spear. And a Coke, not diet. I step back, wait a few seconds and watch with amusement when the aroma hits his nose and his head snaps up. His mouth drops open and he stares. Then he lifts his eyes, wide with astonishment. I just smile. “Eat yer food,” I say and go back to my desk and my salad.

I sense his presence at the door seconds after I sit. He just stares at me then mumbles, “Thanks, Margaret.” I hear him move to the couch and I smile when I hear the groan of satisfaction he can’t stifle when he takes the first bite of the burger. I hear the pop can open. He’s eating.

I think back again to the drinking days. The days when I was more his keeper than his secretary or assistant. When every single day there were choices to make. So many. I remember a phrase he had uttered once about a case. He said he felt the people involved were balanced on the precipice of choice. That life was about choice. That our lives were balanced on the edge of choices. That was what my job involved. Choice. To stay or leave. To give up or hunker down. Hide the bottles or throw up my hands in disgust. To clean him up or leave him in the vomit stained clothes.

He called once. Gave me an address right before I heard him pass out. A choice again. Go or stay. I made the choice. I opened the door. A choice. Step in or leave. I stepped in. He was lying on the bed face down. His feet off the end of the bed. I could smell the booze and the vomit. I shook his leg. When he didn’t move after several tries I started to panic. Fearing the worst I rolled him over. He was breathing, but it was ragged, harsh. I couldn’t rouse him. I rolled him on his side and he suddenly vomited almost straight booze all over himself. He never woke up. I was so scared. I thought he would choke on it. He was ice cold and pale. His lips were almost blue.

I managed to strip his clothes off, leaving the boxers. I rolled him under the blankets and propped him on his side. I sat with him that night, praying he would wake up. I used the phone to cancel and rearrange, once again, his Monday appointments. I washed his shirt and pants in the sink with the tiny bottle of hotel shampoo. I wrapped his jacket in the plastic hotel laundry bag. And I sat. Making sure he breathed.

He woke at 8:17 in the morning. His eyes opened as I watched. It took a while for him to focus and realize where he was and whom he was with. When he did, his eyes widened slightly and they moved over my shoulder. When he looked back I could see the pain in his eyes. He knew what I had done. He tried to speak, but his voice was so rough he gave up. I told him I had to go. I had been there all night. “You’ll be okay?” He nodded. “I thought you were going to die. Go home,” I said. His eyes closed. I walked out.

I almost didn’t go back. He was going to kill himself. I had finally come to realize he might be trying to do just that. I knew of his history. I knew the war in Vietnam had been ugly and brutal and devastating. I knew that his time over there was a big part of his drinking. The pills he used to try to make himself feel better because the drinking made him feel so bad. I almost didn’t go back. I don’t think I could have handled it if he died. It was likely I would be the one to _find_ him.

I almost didn’t go back, but I did. I went back because I couldn’t _not_ go back. He needed someone to keep him from killing himself. Somehow I was the one that fate had decreed be the one. I went back. That Tuesday, after his worst bender yet, after the night from hell, he was at his desk when I came in. He called my name. He couldn’t look at me, but he whispered, “I am sorry Margaret.” I stayed.

I have stayed because I have seen him fight and battle and struggle and almost lose and then he somehow gathers his pride and his will around him and he rises again from the ashes of his own despair. His divorce, Rosslyn, the President’s MS, his own disclosure of his alcoholism and drug addiction. He is the strongest and the weakest man I know. Each time he is battered down he rises; fiercer, stronger, shining with his desire to do his duty. His weakness; his inability to let go of the guilt and the shame. How can I walk away from that?

He is sitting at his desk again, reading, when I go back into the room. I pick up the plate from the coffee table and toss the Coke can in the wastebasket by his desk. I feel his eyes on me as I walk around the room. At the door to my office, I turn and look at him. Seated at his desk with his glasses on his nose, the soft yellow glow of his desk lamp lighting his face, I see the look again. He looks down quickly, then back up. He opens his mouth to speak and I stop him. “Good night, Leo.”

I go to my office and turn off may computer, shut off the lights, lock the cabinets and my desk. Put on my coat and grab my purse and tote. I pick up the plate to drop off in the mess before I go home. I sense him. I turn and he is standing in his office doorway. We stand there for several long minutes, just staring. “Night Margaret.” “Night, Leo.” I leave.

I am again in that same position. I am once again poised on the precipice of choice. God help me, I have no idea what choice I will make. But I do know, whatever it is, it will be for him, because of him…

 


	4. Loneliness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I want to act on these incoherent ramblings that are bouncing around the inside of my head. I just want to tell her that she makes me a better me and for that, I love her. I am in love with her, and with her, maybe, I can wrest a few demons to the ground and find an end to the loneliness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This piece has some stronger language in it and some very mild  
> sexual imagery.

She brought me a cheeseburger. She never brings me junk food. She harps about my diet. She brought me French fries. And a Coke. What the hell? I tried to tell her. I really did. She stopped me. Did she guess? Does she know I am about to do something completely outlandish and so un-Leo McGarry that she has sensed it? Does she know I want to tell her that…?

What do I want to tell her? I can barely form the words in my head, let alone say them out loud. Do I love her, or just like her, or do I like her A LOT…Do I lust after her…goddamn yes…Do I want to date, woo, court, pursue, keep company, spend time with her? Yes; to all the previous. Do I want to have sex, make love, devour, sleep with, make out with, be intimate with her? Again…YES. I guess I really don’t know what I want…or if I want it at all. It’s been a long time. It should be understandable that I am confused. _Am I?_

Confused, that is? Holy hell, yes. Confused, befuddled, bewildered, discombobulated, flustered as hell and more than slightly bemused at the whole damn thing. I state categorically that this is not me. I am not this completely confused, flummoxed, horny, lonely… Shit. I am. When the hell did this happen? When did the thought of kissing her, touching her, loving her crawl into my head and take up residence like a recalcitrant toad, perched on a rock taunting me every waking hour and most of my sleeping hours, too?

Stop it! Christ, I can’t do this. This is driving me crazy. I don’t want to do this again. I don’t want to navigate the mine field of a relationship again. I suck at it. I can’t give it what it needs, what it requires, to flourish and be real. I suffocate relationships, I starve them, I kill them. I can’t give me to a relationship. Maybe, maybe someday. But not NOW. I can’t do it now. He needs me now. My friend. My President. I promised. I promised him I would be there the whole way. I won’t leave him, physically, intellectually, emotionally. I can’t. So how can I contemplate trying to be what he needs me to be and what she would need me to be? As far as I am aware they cannot clone people yet.

Maybe because I know she would understand. Of all the people in the world she is one of a mere handful who know, who understand. She knows me better than anyone, yet I am sure she knows me not at all. We have always had that line. You know, the one that cannot be crossed? Why am I even thinking about crossing it?

Because crossing the line could be the end of the loneliness. That gut wrenching ache that wakes me in the wee hours to torment me, to laugh, scathingly, at my despair. My god, when did loneliness become my Achilles heel? When did it become my tormentor, my Prometheus? And while I am at it, why is Margaret the one I want to fill up my emptiness? Why risk what we have now, why risk the press and the rest of the staff coming after us? Anyone could fill up the empty spaces in my life. Right?

Wrong. Dead wrong. Not just anyone. I have only had one true love in my life up to now. I loved Jenny and was as faithful as I could be to her. I just can’t be with anyone, not just for sex, not just to banish loneliness. I guess I am a hopeless romantic. I could be a cad, in it for sex, and any long line of DC women would line up outside the gate I am told. But I can’t. If you are going to be with someone it should mean something, it should be more than frantic coupling in a hotel room or a dark closet somewhere. That’s why I avoided the ‘dating scene’. It’s a demeaning cattle call where you try out someone and see if, maybe, they might fit into your world, your life, your body, your arms… I can’t do the casual sex thing for any number of reasons, jeez, for a multitude of reasons. Sigh…

I am sure I am too old to do this again, this start over thing. With anyone. But. But, if I did, why would I choose to start from scratch? Why _wouldn’t_ I look at someone who has been in my life forever? Why _wouldn’t_ I turn to the comfort of familiarity? Why _wouldn’t_ I turn to someone who knows me better than anyone else? And she does. Know me. Better than anyone. She knows me better than Jenny. After a while, when the drinking began, she stopped asking questions, stopped being interested in anything I did, stopped caring too much because it hurt too much. We drifted apart long before the real problems began.

As well as Jed knows me, we have not been as close in later years. I mean we are still close as any two guys who are not brothers can be, the very best of friends. But he has been a little busy the last couple of years and our friendship has been tested and tried. The closeness has taken a back seat. I expected it. He didn’t and he gets angry sometimes. There is a lot he doesn’t get or understand about me these days and he knows it. It pisses him off.

But Margaret. She has been there every step of the way. When my drinking and the drugs were the only thing I cared about. I managed to cut back when I became the Secretary of Labor. That was an honor, especially in a Republican White House. I tried. I really did. But the demons don’t give a shit about honor. The demons just want their pound of flesh and fuck everything else. The demons took over. At times I was sure everyone knew I was a pathetic drunk, but Margaret just kept rearranging the schedule, covering for my ass, holding my damn head as I puked.

Why? Don’t you think I have asked myself about a _million_ times why she has stayed? Anyone in their right mind would have run away from me as fast as possible. Margaret is not crazy, or masochistic, or stupid. God, so far from stupid. I think she could do this job. Better than I have. No, she is not naïve, or helpless. Yet…she stays. She gives me shit and she stays. She calls me on it daily. And I let her. And she stays when most others have given up. Why?

I drop the briefing book I have been holding in front of my face on the desk with a thump. I have not read a word of it since I sat down. I walked past her desk and the smell of her, perfume and hand lotion and some fruity tea, just whacked me in the gut. I almost tripped as I fell through the door, walked to my desk and fell into my chair. I heard her get up so I grabbed the closest thing on my desk and glared at it. I saw her in the doorway over my glasses. I ignored her, and she went back to her desk.

Why does she stay? I pray she does. I pray she is still here when I find the guts to tell her she means something to me. She knows that now. But she doesn’t know how much she means to me. In my heart. She doesn’t know my heart is a void until she walks into my morning. She doesn’t know I think of her first thing when I wake up, last thing when I fall asleep or that she invades my dreams. Not _those_ kinds of dreams… Okay, some of them _are_ those kinds of dreams. But so many of the dreams are of her smile, her awful jokes, things as simple as the latest goofy note, the way she brings me food, the way she walks into my office, the way she bows her head in concentration. Comfortable things. Everyday things.

And yes. Occasionally, dreams of passion filled nights, the feel of her mouth beneath mine, her hair in my hands, her breasts against my chest. Occasionally, I ache to feel her body against mine, just in my arms. It’s happening more and more often. I had one of those dreams Saturday night. I was exhausted when I got back to my apartment, still wishing I lived in the damn hotel because it was closer and I wasn’t responsible for feeding myself and cleaning up like I was here. No room service and maids to meet my needs here. Here I have to cook, which usually I enjoy, just not at 11:58 at night. Here I do my own laundry, except for my suits; here I have to make the bed and do dishes so if I do decide to cook…well, ya know.

Anyway, I had one of those dreams… And it left me shattered, feeling more alone than I ever have, shaken and wobbly when I got up to go pee. It was so real. How could it be so real when I have never seen Margaret without clothes, when I have no idea how she likes to be kissed or how she…tastes…

Oh, god…did I just moan. Holy shit…

“Are you okay Leo,” she asks from the doorway?

‘Shit, shit, shit…’ “Yeah, just tired. Go home Margaret…it’s late.”

“No. Not really. It’s only 7:20.”

“Oh. Okay. Uh, get me a cup of coffee.”

She is still standing there looking at me. “Please,” I ask as nicely as I can? She turns around and leaves without a word, moments later plunking a cup down on my desk with just a little too much force. She walks out. She drags my heart with her. She shreds my soul as she leaves, ravages my poise. This cannot go on. I am teetering on the brink of losing my mind, losing control. Something has to give.

She is the one I need. For all the reasons that make sense and especially for those that make no sense at all. She is the one I want. She has been my rock, my conscience, my cheerleader, my everything for so long I want no one else. I don’t care anymore if this is right or wrong, good or bad, sane or insane for this administration. No…wait…did I say that?

Yeah, I did. And I am right. Maybe it’s time we stop, I stop, worrying that every breath we take is going to be dissected by press and Republicans alike. I don’t care if Mary Marsh calls us sick perverts and worse. Fuck Mary Marsh…well…not really. Get that image outta my damn head. I am tired of trying to prove that we are all good people who care and want to do good. I just want to…I just…

Damn. I want to act on these incoherent ramblings that are bouncing around the inside of my head. I just want to tell her that she makes me a better me and for that, I love her. I am in love with her, and with her, maybe, I can wrest a few demons to the ground and find an end to the loneliness.


	5. Sanctuary

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Finally, I reach the sanctuary of my apartment. I shut and lock the door, slide the deadbolt. I drop my things to the floor and fall beside them in a heap.

Bring me a cup of coffee. Sure. It’s what I live for. I heard him moan. I was worried. He wants to push me away. “Go home, Margaret.” Sure. I could have been home hours ago with a normal job. It’s now going on ten o’clock. He got called to the sit room right after I brought him his damn cup of coffee. Qumar is becoming a dirty word around here. He could be there all night, but I have to wait. Because of that groan. And because I worry. What did the groan mean? Just that he really is bone tired? Is he coming down with something? Was that an ‘Oh God I need a drink’ moan? I don’t think I could go through it again if he ever took up drinking again.

He’s finally back. I go and get another cup of coffee and thump it down on the desk again. His head snaps up and his eyes catch mine before I can look away…and then I can’t look away. I feel like I am pinned to a cork board by his eyes. Sometimes bluish, sometimes hazel, sometimes dark and smoky, always… _always_ full of expression, feeling and right now something terribly like desire.

I can’t back away or turn my head and I all rational thought has gone on vacation. He simply looks at me. He doesn’t stare or glare or blink or look away. He just looks at me. His mouth opens and then closes and then he licks his lips, slowly, and opens his mouth again, yet nothing comes out. Not a sound; not a moan or a word or a bellow. He then looks down. I follow his eyes. My hand is still on the handle of the coffee cup I put on his desk. He slowly reaches out and pulls the cup from my fingers, lifts it to his lips, takes a long drink. He puts down the cup and pushes back his chair with the backs of his knees and stands.

Now would be a good time for my feet to move, for my legs to carry me back to my office and the safety of a slammed door. He is standing now. I am not moving yet; he is. He is rounding the desk. He still has me pinned with his gaze, but then he looks down when his foot bumps the chair in front of his desk. Thank God.

I turned and walk to my office, shutting the door calmly behind me. Although I am shaking and weak in the knees, I shut down my computer, turn off the light, grab my things and turn to leave. I hear his office door open and I turn, unable _not_ to look back. He is just standing there, watching me. His eyes are glassy as he turns back to his office and shuts the door. The look on his face almost made me go back to him, but I can’t go to him. I can never go to him. If this is what the looks and the sighs mean, I cannot do this. I cannot do this to him. I will not be the person who brings him or this administration down, or if not down, at least ridden with scandal once again.

Perhaps I think too much of myself right now, thinking that he is going to say he cares for me. I must be wrong. I have to be wrong, because it just can’t happen. I am sure that it must be something else. Maybe I should go back. Is he ill? Is another scandal about to break? Does he care…I know he loves me in the way he loves all the senior staff. We have been together for so long, I know him and he knows me, but we have never, I have never…has he ever thought it could be more?

No. It cannot ever be more. Even though I love him for all I am worth, have loved him ever since…when was the moment I knew? Rosslyn. That moment when we didn’t know if anyone had been shot, that moment that was all possibility until we knew. It stopped me in my tracks. My heart almost stopped. The vision in my head of him on the ground, covered in blood…I knew in that moment that I loved him more than life. I would die for him. If he stopped breathing, I would stop breathing.

Finally, I reach the sanctuary of my apartment. I shut and lock the door, slide the deadbolt. I drop my things to the floor and fall beside them in a heap. Now the tears I have held in fall. Silently but endlessly. I cannot stop them, nor do I want to. I want to cry until I have no tears left. I want to cry for the love I feel but cannot have, because I would rather die than cause him one second of pain or embarrassment.

Tomorrow, I will go to work and steel my heart. I will ask him if he is okay. He will say he’s fine. I will tell him an awful joke. He will glare at me. I will bring him lunch and he won’t eat it. I will love him with all my heart and we will go on as we have…


	6. Dreams

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This was the stuff of dreams, of desire. In his dreams he could love her, he could have her

Leo/Margaret  
Disclaimer: They are not mine…  
MATURE

 

He sat at his desk in the dark, turned to the window watching the dark. He chuckled. He had to. It was so incongruous he just had to chuckle. If he didn’t he would cry, and he was not gonna cry. Leo McGarry did not cry. There. ‘What a fuckin lie,’ he thought as a single tear slid down his cheek. Okay, maybe he did, just not where anyone could see him. 

He pushed back the chair and walked over to the couch. He laid back on it, his head on the arm, legs crossed and hands behind his head. He’d stay here tonight, again. There was a fresh suit and underwear in his closet. He could shower and shave and present Leo McGarry to the world in the morning, dressed for battle, no one the wiser that he had never left, didn’t have the courage to leave, to go back to his apartment alone, that he didn’t have the courage to face another night alone away from his office. While he was here he could claim there was work to be done. He just wondered how long he could keep lying to himself.

 

Margaret picked herself up off the floor, turned out the lights in the living room and went into her bedroom. She slowly undressed, hung up her suit to take to the dry cleaners, tossed the blouse in the hamper and sat to remove her stockings. The dried tears made her face feel stretched and sticky. In the bathroom she washed her face, brushed her teeth and crawled into bed naked. All she wanted was a few hours of sleep, blessed relief from wakeful reality. 

Of course sleep eluded her. Of course she would lay here awake until morning. Of course she could not get him out of her head. Of course. She loved him. She had loved him for years, but now she was in love with him. She loved his smile, his laugh, God his laugh, his determination, his sense of duty, of country, of pride. She found him to be sexy and charming when he wanted to be and utterly exasperating and full of fury when he needed to be. He drove her nuts in twenty different ways and she loved them all.

She wanted him. All of him. His smile, his laugh, his eloquent eyes, his strength. She wanted his body wrapped around hers, his mouth on hers, his hands touching her most intimate places. She wanted to touch him, feel his desire in her mouth, bring him to completion and hear his sighs, his moans. She wanted him to gasp her name. She wanted to chant his name as he thrust into her and scream it when she came. She moaned aloud at the images in her head. Her dreams were always of her and Leo. God, what would his mouth feel like? Hot and urgent or warm and slowly searching?

She wrapped her body around her pillow, imagined it was him. ‘Please let me sleep tonight.’

 

Leo moaned in his sleep and rolled onto his back on the couch in his office. He was deep asleep, caught up in a dream. His head rolled back and forth and his hands twitched as the dream wove its way through his unconscious mind. The dream took hold, took root in his soul. He cried out her name as he reached for her. She slipped away, vanishing, only to reappear again, taunting him.

‘Margaret. Please. Don’t go. Please stay with me. Be with me.’ But she faded away again and again, pulling him deeper and deeper into the dream. He was afraid. He felt the fear, as strong as any fear that had ever consumed him. He felt it in his chest, in the pit of his stomach, in his loins as it became desire. All consuming desire.

She appeared again, all red hair and long legs, full breasts and husky voice. Her blue eyes and full lips. When did he first realize she was beautiful? When did he first long to kiss her and touch her and hold her body against his? When did Margaret become the name he cried out in the night when the dreams became so intense, so erotic, that he would shout himself awake; the orgasms so intense that his vision was blurred and white lights danced behind his eyes? 

Then, in the dream, she was standing before him. Her red hair was soft and loose and brushed her shoulders. Her blue eyes were shining as she held out her hand to him. He reached out, slowly, tentatively. In the dreams, she would often fade away just as he touched her, but this time, she took his hand and pulled him close. Her free hand caressed his cheek and she leaned forward to softly kiss his lips…

 

She leaned forward to softly kiss his lips. Barely, like the gently touch of a butterfly’s wing, like a soft breath of air, she barely touched her lips to his. The touch was like fire. It crackled like a spark jumping from his lips to hers. She started to back away, to fade away again…he reached out and pulled her back to him, hand at the back of her neck, drawing her lips to his. No mere touch this time as his mouth consumed hers, open, tongues probing and searching, breaths held, moans vanquished in their mouths.

She tossed and turned in her bed. Her legs restless, arms reaching, Leo’s name on her lips as he kissed her in her dream. Her heart raced as he touched her, held her, gripped her hips and pulled her into his straining erection. She wrapped her arms around his neck as his lips trailed hot, wet kisses from her ear to her collar bone and back again. He took her mouth again and she sighed. His hands travelled from her shoulder to her hips, then reached and cupped her ass. She groaned aloud when he pulled her against him and ground his hips into hers. 

She kicked off the bed covers in her sleep, thrashing and twisting on the bed. In the dream Leo was slipping her blouse from her shoulders as his lips claimed her nipple through the lace bra…

Leo groaned in his sleep and fell deeper into his dream. There, he slowly undid the buttons of her blouse, one at a time, then slipped it off her shoulders slowly, lightly caressing her arms as his hands pushed the material down. He bent forward and sucked her nipple through the lace bra that held her breasts. She moaned and pushed her hips into his.

This was the stuff of dreams, of desire. In his dreams he could love her, he could have her. In his dreams he could undo the bra that confined her breasts and free them so he could take her bared nipple in his mouth. He could hear her moan his name as he nipped and sucked at her nipples while his hands held her hips to his. He could grind his straining erection against her mound, slip the panties from her body and bury himself in her heat…

‘God…Margaret…’ he sat up on the couch as a wave of sensation took him and tipped him over the edge of his desire. He stared into the distance, eyes unfocused, his breath ragged. He fell back to the cushions and groaned as his whole body shuddered. ‘Shit. Dammit.’ He tried to slow his breathing as he watched his hands tremble as he brought them up to drag across his face. ‘God. Again. And here…’ Anyone could have walked in and known what was happening to him.  
He rose and stumbled to his desk. He grabbed a handful of tissues from a box on the corner of his desk. He unzipped his trousers and reached in and cleaned himself as best he could, then he balled up the tissues in his pocket. Best not to leave them here, even in the trash.

He turned off the desk lamp, grabbed his coat and left, leaving his briefcase behind. He knew he would get home and just collapse. When he signed out he told the guard to have his office locked and he walked into the night.

 

 

Margaret’s back arched off the bed as she experienced the intensity of the dream induced orgasm. She fell back onto the warm, tangled sheets, moaning his name. Tears ran down into her ears as ragged sighs shook her frame. She wanted the dreams to stop, she wanted them to be real. The intensity of the dreams, the sheer magnitude of sensation, left her weak and shaking.

She stumbled to her bathroom and dried her face and used a warm rag to wipe away the residue of her desire. She changed into some clothes and fell back into the bed. ‘This has to stop. I can’t keep having dreams like this.’

The dreams were clouding her judgement, invading her reality. They were affecting her job and her sanity. If she couldn’t get past this she would have to leave. She didn’t know if she could, but she knew she couldn’t keep going like this. She was a wreck. Her nerves were shot. She knew it would never happen. Leo would never love her, never become her lover.

She wasn’t sure she could walk away from him. He was her life. But she just couldn’t keep going like this. The hardest thing she could do would be to leave and also the easiest, if it meant keeping this from him, it would be easy to leave. But could she leave, knowing that it would probably hurt him? Would it devastate him, or just inconvenience him, or maybe even piss him off?

One thing was sure. He was the love of her life and it would devastate her, kill her, wound her…but if it was for him…she would do it. She would move on…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is then end of The first in the series The Precipice of Choice.


End file.
